During the process when foreigners study in China, the Chinese Pinyin is inevitably to be learned. Meanwhile, many of them may be confused by the writing way of people’s names by Pinyin. Some people place the family name in the former part while some write it in the later part.
To standardize the rule of writing names, relevant document was carried out to unify the writing principle, that is, family name first and name after. This document is called “The Rule of Name Spelling in Pinyin”. However, this rule is discussed by many teachers who teach Mandarin language. They are worrying whether it is feasible or not.
As early as the year of 1976, Chinese Characters Reform Committee has formulated the rules of spelling Chinese names in Pinyin. Students who study Chinese may be curious about the contents of this rule. It says that the name of Chinese people is made up of two parts, the Chinese names and the manes of the ethnic people. When spelling names with Pinyin, the Chinese names should be written according to that of the Mandarin. And the names of ethnic people are spelled in the way of their ethnic languages.
By comparing these two rules, the basic principle of spelling is the same, that is, the family name first and name comes after. Over the past few decades, with the increase of foreign exchanges, we use Pinyin to spell names more and more frequently. If you attend to school to study Mandarin, you will know that even there is certain spelling way recommended by the authority, the methods of writing names with Pinyin are in a mass because there is no fixed universal rule.
As a matter of fact, the spelling rule can be carried out, but it is impossible to force every single person to obey the rule. Learners who learn Mandarin in China should realize that the main subject to follow the rule should be the publishing agencies and news agencies like books, periodicals, newspapers and television, more importantly, the documents for foreign exchange and international academic conference.
From the perspective of individual citizens, it is their right to decide which spelling approach they use to write their names in Pinyin. It is acceptable as long as it does not affect the daily normal life. What’s more, from the view of convention, people are willing to accept different spelling methods mutually for the convenience to communicate. Foreigners who learn Chinese in China can see obviously that there is no need to modify the conventional writing way.
However, at the same time, learners in Mandarin learning courses should realize that it is necessary to use the unified names spelling with Pinyin in some fields like publication and academic exchange. Take the Ministry of Education itself as an example. The rules formulated in the year of 1998 about the names of the writers of books emphasized that when writing people’s name with Pinyin, the person name should be written after the surname. What’s more, the first letter of both name and surname should be capitalized and no hyphen is allowed between the name and surname.
Another document also carried out by Office of the Ministry of Education in 2000 but had different provisions. Aiming at the names of the authors, this document required clearly that the family name is placed first and then comes the person’s name, with a space in the middle of them. All letters of the family name should be capitalized but only the first letter of name is capitalized. A hyphen is needed between them. Taking a close look at these two rules, students learning in Chinese language school will find there are obvious differences between them.
As the principle carried out by the Ministry of Education, the rule itself is the department regulation. Those who learn Chinese language in China may think that there are unified regulations to standardize the names spelling rules with Pinyin. However, it is ironical that the rules formulated by the same department are in contradiction.
Therefore, many teachers and professors in Mandarin language courses in China carry hold the opinion that the Ministry of Education itself should form the unified regulations to standardize the spelling rules, testing whether the public is willing to accept and obey it.
According to the opinions discussed above, whether the new rule just put forward can be accepted and followed smoothly by the public or not still remained as a question.